Landlord Evicting Us Due to Her Negligence-PLEASE HELP!!!

[blimeyzawn]

What is the name of your state? Georgia

Hello,

I've recently moved into a basement apartment. There is no lease, though I do have several e-mails outlining the criteria for living there, as well as a verbal agreement that the landlord must give 60 days' notice for us to move out. We have had problems with this landlord from the moment we moved in. She has refused to fix things (we have no electricity in the bedroom and a flooded kitchen), not responded to phone calls, e-mails, etc, and we have been planning to move as soon as we can find a new place.

We have a bigger problem now, though. Apparently this landlord's homeowner's association does not allow her to rent properties to tenants. We did nto know this when we moved in. She sent me an e-mail yesterday stating that her Homeowner's Association discovered that she had rented the property to us and that we had to move before August 5th in order to prevent her from being fined.

There is absolutely no way we can find a place to live in this amount of time. Do we have any options? I'm not even sure that I believe the story about the Homeowner's Association; I think she may want to rent it to a friend of hers for more money. I have asked to see the letter and so far gotten no response. What can happen if we are not out on the fifth? Is she required to follow the 60-day notice agreement that we agreed upon?

I really don't know what to do here. Please help! Otherwise I may be without a place to live.

 

[ENASNI]

Gee

http://www.legis.state.ga.us/cgi-bin/gl_codes_detail.pl?code=44-7-7

44-7-7 -->
44-7-7.
Sixty days´ notice from the landlord or 30 days´ notice from the tenant is necessary to terminate a tenancy at will.

I am not really sure if this holds with illegal apartments, but I sure bet it does.
I hope I can find something that says so. Until then. I found this.

 

[FarmerJ]

Your city/county govt center offices can tell you if the place is registered as 2 units or one and what property is zoned for. its public information they have to tell you or let you look it up.

 

[Who's Liable?]

Give her written 30-days notice delivered via CRRR or Courier... This will help you in the long run, and will provide proof that you legally vacated the premises... Additionally, make records of everything when you move out, pcitures, etc... This will protect you for after you move out if your LL tries to sue you for things that were already broken...

 

[blimeyzawn]

Thanks for all the advice. The situation has escalated since my last post, and while I hate to keep pestering everyone for help, I do need some more guidance.

I did some research on Georgia Law, and with a tenancy at will (which is what we have), the Landlord is required to give sixty days' notice regardless of the situation with the Homeowner's Association. I'm doing the nice thing here and going ahead with moving out early because I sympathize with the fact that she's going to have to pay fines with her homeowner's association. However, it is now the third and I don't yet have a place. She has told me that if we are not out by the fifth, we are required to pay rent for August in full, even if we move out before the end of August.

In addition to this, the house we are renting has basically turned into a catastrophe since all of this has taken place. The kitchen has flooded for reasons that remain unclear, and despite repeated requests she hasn't fixed it. Also, there seems to be a wiring issue in the bedroom. There is absolutely no electricity there, and once again, she's made no move toward getting this fixed. I don't want to spend my money to fix something for a house that we may be living in for only days. Do we have an option of deducting some portion off of rent because of the broken things in the house? Or do we just have to go ahead and pay it?

Thanks for any help you guys can provide.

 

[FarmerJ]

Call your city housing inspections dept and ask them to come out and take a look at the wiring.